


Limbo

by arekushia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Purgatory, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:18:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arekushia/pseuds/arekushia
Summary: “They say purgatory is the worst place to end up. It’s not heaven, where everyone wants to go, where you can forget your worries, your pain, your struggles, for eternity. It’s not hell, where at least you know what you’re there for, and you know what you’re in for. In purgatory, you’re stuck. You don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know why it’s happening, you don’t even know who you are anymore. But you’re still being watched, judged. In a way, it’s as if you’re still living.”__________Victor and Yuuri wake up to a strange world they don’t recognize, and in an attempt to escape from their dreamlike state, they work together to make sense of their environment and themselves. But the cost of doing so is higher than they imagined, and it only continues to grow as they grow closer together.





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> This idea for this AU originally came from a dream that I had over a year ago, and while I was hesitant to make it into a full story since it’s a bit strange, I figured I had nothing to lose from it. There are things that may not make logical sense, especially in the beginning, but as weird as some things in this story are, it’s my intention to make them like that.  
> Although this work uses the concepts of heaven, hell, and purgatory, it is not attributed to a certain religion. In this AU, they are simply ways that people are categorized after they have physically passed away. For the sake of not giving away too much, I’ll leave it at this.  
> I’m trying my hand at using gender-neutral pronouns when introducing new characters to a scene for the first time with this work. It was an extra challenge for myself, since the genders of characters in YOI are already generally decided, and it would have been easy to rely on that information. But when I considered the mystery and uncertainty in this work, I realized that this is a good opportunity to try something new.  
> If you want to keep in touch, you can follow my tumblr @victuuuuri-on-ice. I’m not very active, but I may post things once in a while.

Chaos.

It rings in his ears. A chorus of sound and vibrations making his chest pound and his head dizzy. He is everywhere and nowhere at once, himself but everything else, as if the weight of the world is placed on his shoulders. Darkness engulfs him, suffocates him, until he feels that he is the darkness itself, twisting and turning and stretching and compressing, crushed smaller and smaller, deprived of everything except his consciousness, his consciousness and the pounding of his heart like a frantic drum, faster and faster until he knows nothing but the darkness and the screams and the chaos and—

White.

His chest heaves. The ceiling above him, as well as the walls— _no, a canopy_ , he realizes—the white, silky sheets frame the tall posts of the bed he lies on, bigger than he remembers. They obscure his vision, but a slight breeze rustles them. Slowly sitting up, his own body feeling foreign to him, a glimpse of verdant green peeks out from between the canopy’s covers.

Slowly, his ears begin to pick up sounds. A wind chime softly rings. A bird’s soft chirp echoes in the distance. A presence he can’t describe makes itself present in the rustling of trees, the wind itself seeming to have its own voice. At this moment, it seems that if he listens hard enough, he’ll be able to hear the whole world. The room itself, though, is silent. Only his own breathing and heartbeat are audible, and the only movement besides that of his chest, still a bit erratic, is that of the fabric surrounding him.

If he makes any other movement, he senses that a balance will be broken—what hangs in the balance, he has no clue of. However, a compulsion to move eventually wins him over, moving to the edge of the bed and pulling the thin white sheets to the side.

_A person._

Unruly locks of silver hair, light skin, a white robe loosely hanging from their shoulders and tied at the waist, and blue-green eyes stare relentlessly at him from a few feet away. His heart skips a beat, throat dry for a moment until he blinks once, twice. Thrice. Tilts his head. Then reaches up to run a hand through his hair.

_No. A mirror._

As he continues to watch, staring into those eyes— _my eyes—_ an unsettling feeling digs itself deep into his gut. Something is wrong. Something is missing. His breathing has mostly settled down, but like this, simply watching the slight rise and fall of his chest, he feels as vulnerable as a newborn child, exposed to a completely new environment with nothing to help him.

_Victor._

His name. How he’s sure of it, he can’t comprehend—it simply feels right. Brows furrowing slightly, he gulps, his tongue feeling like a lump in his throat. “Vic...tor.” It takes a few seconds for him to process the sound of his voice. The twist in the pit of his stomach shows the slightest hint of beginning to subside. So he repeats it, again and again, watching his mouth in the mirror, as if invoking his name solidifies his body in the space he occupies and condemns the unease that was threatening to take him over. _I am Victor. I exist._ The rumbling of his throat, the motion of his tongue, and the thump of his heart gradually grow to be less foreign to him, and when he quiets down, the man in the mirror no longer intimidates him.

There are still questions, though. Where. What. Why.

No longer feeling as vulnerable as he did a few moments ago, Victor slowly brings his legs over the edge of the bed, feeling a carpeted floor beneath his feet. It’s not only the bed and canopy that’s white: the carpet spanning the entire floor, the small nightstand to Victor’s left, the recessed ceiling lamp directly above his head, the double doors to the left to the mirror—all of it is an identical shade, almost blinding to look at with the sun coming in to illuminate the room.

Standing takes a few seconds, but Victor finds that the disorientation he felt when sitting up is mostly gone. Surrounded by white, the greenery outside calls his attention, drawing him to what he initially thought were windows. Instead, an open balcony greets him. The chime he heard earlier hangs from a hook extending off of a marble column framing one of the balcony’s corners, a small orb of painted glass with a slender, cylindrical rod in the center, occasionally colliding with the sphere and creating fleeting resonance. The bird from earlier can also still be heard, but is nowhere in sight, lost in the vast expanse of greenery seeming to surround the building Victor is in. In the far distance, peaks of mountains pierce through white clouds, the sun shining just above them. _It’s early in the morning...or late afternoon._

Victor’s sense of direction is just as lost as he is—to him, the center of the world, the universe, even, is this room, impeccable and clean, with a twenty-seven-year-old man lost within its walls.

_I’m twenty-seven._

A sudden knock echoes through the room, Victor immediately turning towards its source, the double doors by the mirror. Nothing else accompanies it. In fact, Victor can hardly detect a presence behind the doors, either, and even after watching in absolute stillness for a few minutes, nothing else happens. The knocking, to him, was a kind of signal, beckoning him to explore further. He takes a few steps forward, then stops and looks at the tall closet to his right. Just like everything else, white, with porcelain knobs shining in the sunlight. Looking down at his robe while noting that he’s been barefoot this whole time, Victor figures that if he’s going to leave the strange room he’s found himself in, he’ll need something more presentable. What he could possibly be presenting himself to, though, he knows nothing about.

The doors make hardly any noise as he opens the closet. Unsurprisingly, its interior is white as well. An assortment of clothes, neatly folded on the bottom shelf or on a hanger, follows the trend. Victor feels as if he’s tainting the garments as he takes them out of the closet, but he doesn’t have any other options—only one set of clothes exist, and as he lets his robe slip down his shoulders and fall to the carpet, proceeding to change into each piece, it only reinforces the impression that the clothes were specifically set out for him. They’re a perfect fit.

Finished, he stands in front of the mirror, eyes going over each piece of the pearl-white suit: the silky shirt and tie, embroidered vest, jacket, pants, shoes, and even the pocket handkerchief the same exact color, nothing out of place. Except…

_I could use some help with the bedhead._

It happens in the blink of an eye. The muffled sound of something impacting the ground makes Victor jolt, and when he glances down he sees a small, white comb at his feet. There’s something familiar about its shape and size, and as he bends down to pick it up, he can’t ignore the way that it comfortably fits in his hand. Sighing softly in resignation, deciding not to pay too much attention to the cryptic appearance of the comb, he watches himself brush through his shiny gray locks in the mirror, parting it so that a majority of his fringe falls across the left side of his forehead, just like he’s used to. _This is what I’m used to…?_

Pondering further for a moment, he stops combing and stares at his reflection. Although he doesn’t know why he would be a stranger to himself, he senses a greater degree of familiarity with the man in the mirror now that his hair is fixed up.

“...Better.”

The comb is left on the nightstand. After walking over to the doors and placing his hand on the curved handle, Victor stands in silence. There’s no telling what’s beyond this mysterious room, and as far as he can tell, he isn’t even sure if other people are there with him. But he doesn’t see the purpose in staying confined to the room he’s in, either. Moreover, his curiosity is slowly winning him over. He wants to make sense of the space around him. He wants to understand it. He needs to have at least some control over his situation.

Once he turns the handle and steps out, however, his curiosity only grows tenfold.

The hallway in front of him stretches out infinitely, with a series of equally-spaced doors flanked on each side, identical in color and design to the set of doors he just left from. The walls themselves are several stories tall, and the ceiling arches over at the top, intricate ornaments and details carved into the curvature. Just like the room, though, everything is colorless. As Victor looks at the walls, he’s perplexed by the fact that the building he’s in seems to be three floors—not because of the height itself, but the fact that two more rows of doors are aligned on top of the row on Victor’s level, but there are neither stairs nor hallways leading up to them. He wouldn’t be able to get in, and anyone in them wouldn’t be able to get out. He has a feeling, though, that the rooms are empty anyway.

The silence rings in Victor’s ears once again. At the moment, he’s alone, he knows it, but someone has to know he’s here. The knocking he heard while in his room had come from someone—and the only way to find out is to venture down the hallway in front of him. He has no other choice, especially as he turns around. The door to his room is gone, replaced by a bare wall.

_I’m dreaming_ , he concludes, feeling mostly calm by now. _A door wouldn’t be able to disappear so easily. And if this is a dream, I have nothing to lose._

Slowly making his way down the hall at first, he tentatively tries to open a few doors. While the handles turn, he finds that they refuse to move whether he pushes or pulls on them. After a few minutes, he gives up, continuing to walk forward in silence. Victor has no notion of time as the sound of his shoes impacting the waxen flooring echoes through the hall. The source of light is always in front of him, obscuring his view of what may be in the distance, but as he walks forward, the light continues to retreat backward, never allowing him to properly see where he’s going.

He tries to keep count of the doors at ground level as he keeps walking, but as they continue to appear there are eventually too many to keep track, especially with their identical designs. It seems as if hours have passed since Victor left his room. Wondering how far away he’s gotten from the wall behind him, he turns back.

The wall is still only a few feet away from him, which evokes some confusion, but it isn’t simply a wall anymore. Extending almost the entire length of the wall is a larger set of double doors, with the same design as the smaller ones. A sliver of light shines through the small opening between the two doors, and Victor stops in his tracks. Somehow, he knows there’s nothing awaiting him if he keeps walking down the recursive hallway—his destination is beyond those doors.

As Victor stands behind the door, his fingers curling around the handle while pausing for a moment, he hears noise for the first time in what feels like years. It’s nothing like the chime of glass or chirp of birds he heard in the room he “woke up” to—a dissonant throng of voices, movement, breathing, and people wash over his ears, drowning the deafening silence he was surrounded by just moments ago. As still as a statue, he catches a trace of laughter, pitches high and low, the clinking of glass, silverware on porcelain, and, very faintly, instruments in the background. Strings vibrating, and the flutter of piano keys. The sounds of life. He can’t explain why, but simply closing his eyes and listening to the flurry of noise calms him. A sense of belonging begins to blossom in his chest, as well as a yearning to join in. He doesn’t know who he’ll encounter beyond those doors, but he doesn’t care much. _I’ve been alone for long enough._

As inconspicuously as he tries to enter, eyes are glued on him the moment he further opens the door and steps in. At once, the sounds he heard are amplified several times over, and the amount of life in the large hall is just short of overwhelming for Victor, who has been isolated for far too long. The space itself is vast, with square walls enclosing tens of dozens of people. Ornamental columns stand engraved into the four facades, but beyond them, only a fountain-like structure devoid of water stands in the middle of the space, its top tier rising above the crowd.

In terms of attire, he doesn’t stand out much. Regardless of the kind of clothing worn—dresses, pants, skirts, shorts, shirts, jackets, hats, jewelry, gloves—it’s all the same shade of white on every person in the room. However, Victor finds it hard to make eye contact as he notices one distinct detail, something that sets him apart from everyone else. _There wasn’t a mask in the closet, was there…?_ Just to make sure, he pats the pockets of his pants and jacket but feels nothing. If a mask had been placed in the closet, it blended in too well for him to notice it.

In the vast open space, a ballroom of sorts, occupied by hundreds of people, Victor is the only one without a mask concealing the upper half of his face.

He doesn’t feel too disconcerted by it, as strange as it may be. Regardless of the exposure he feels because of the absence of a mask, he doesn’t see how it would affect his dream. _If it was a mistake on my part, then that’s all it is_.

_“Welcome.”_

A voice not his.

There’s no source—he simply hears it from within his own thoughts. As he turns, though, he finds the door gone. Now, he finds himself in the center of the vast space, among the crowd of people talking and laughing and shifting. Eyes watch him, but he can’t locate their location or source. As he glances at others in the same space with him, he realizes that regardless of how close they are in proximity to him, the magnitude of their voice is the same as someone across the room. Speech doesn’t align with the movement of the peoples’ mouths, either—rather, whenever they open their mouth to talk, Victor is unable to decipher words from their mouth. It is simply movement, blurred a bit, that produces a sound not in the space but in Victor’s mind.

_A dream. Just a dream._

Taking a deep breath, Victor reminds himself to stay calm. As unsettling it is to see movement and not hear it, in dreams anything could happen. The space may warp itself around him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t navigate it. In fact, as he begins walking again, he finds it easy to advance through the crowd, people willingly moving out of the way or immediately moving after he taps their shoulder. Ahead is a clearing of sorts, but Victor won’t be able to completely make out its nature until he’s cleared the crowd. Just like the hallway, as he continues to move forward, the clearing seems to back away. Determined to see what it is, though, he speeds up a bit. Just that is apparently enough—all other motion stops, and Victor successfully steps onto the clearing.

The clearing is elevated from the rest of the floor by a foot or so, and Victor is the only one on it. The only other object on the platform is a table with shiny white legs and a white tablecloth set on top of it. Surprisingly enough, as Victor approaches the long table, he sees that even the food set out is white. What he assumed was food is intelligible to him, a collection of cubes, spheres, pyramids, and prisms of varying length and size. Any aroma is nonexistent, and no one besides Victor approaches the table. As if it was set out only for him.

“Ah...excuse me…”

Everything freezes. Sound falls to silence, movement to marble. It isn’t Victor’s voice. But it isn’t coming from within his mind, either. For what seems like hours, no one dares to move, to breathe. But eventually, Victor’s curiosity wins him over, and he turns.

It’s someone else he doesn’t know. Brown hair, brown eyes, slightly shorter than him, dressed mostly in black with a black and blue jacket, awkwardly excusing themselves as they push through the crowd without a destination in mind. The nervousness is apparent in their face, clearly not comfortable and just as confused as Victor. As if they didn’t stand out enough, they also lacked a mask covering part of their face. Glancing between several people, they slowly make their way past the now silent, motionless crowd until stepping onto the platform where Victor is and exhaling in guarded relief.

Then, Victor notices. All eyes are trained on the newcomer. Victor isn’t sure how he can know for certain, but the way they watch the person dressed in black is anything but welcoming. In an ocean of white, an outsider stands in black, with their own voice.

Their eyes meet Victor’s.

It happens all at once. Heaviness in Victor’s chest and throat, frantic pounding in his chest, the blurring of his vision for a split second, a thousand pitches ringing in his ears. The energy in him seems to drain out in the blink of an eye, but he doesn’t collapse. He simply stays frozen in place, just as motionless as the rest of the masked crowd.

_I know them. I know who they are._

Then it subsides just as quickly, leaving Victor with a strange tingling sensation throughout his body. The other person seems unaffected, brows furrowed before attempting to speak to Victor again. “...Where am I?”

The movement of their mouth doesn’t blur like the others, and Victor can clearly tell that their voice is coming from their mouth. It should be normal, but the fact that it _is_ normal is what surprises him. Even if he can answer, he doesn’t know what to say. Moreover, he has more questions regarding the newcomer than he does about where he is. If someone so distinct has appeared in his dream, why can’t he identify them?

“Um...can you hear me?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Victor immediately responds. “I can. It’s just...you can speak…”

The statement only seems to make them more confused, raising an eyebrow slightly. “Uh...yeah. So can you?”

The slight embarrassment Victor feels as a result of their statement, as well as Victor’s relief that he seems to have found a normal person, makes him laugh a bit. “You’re not wrong.” A thousand questions come at once, not even knowing if the person in front of him has an answer, but Victor tells himself to take things one step at a time.

“What is all this…?” they approach the table, picking up a small cube.

Victor glances back over at what he assumed was food, considering the assortment of shapes are laid out on trays and platters, but doesn’t offer an answer. The others in the room finally begin to move and make noise again, to his relief, but the uncomfortable atmosphere that formed in the split second the stranger appeared still hangs in the air, reminding Victor to be careful. As if following the cue of the newcomer, a few masked individuals come up to the platform, picking up pieces from the trays and eating them without hesitation. _It’s better not to try it myself...I can hardly tell if all this is edible…or rather, if it should be eaten in the first place..._

“It’s kind of sweet.”

“What?” Victor immediately turns around to see the newcomer with a handful of spheres and cubes in each hand, and his eyes widen a bit in disbelief.

“O-oh, I was talking to myself,” they admit, slightly embarrassed. “Did you want one…?”

“I’m fine. Um…”

Before Victor even has time to say anything else, they pop a cube into their mouth, as if they couldn’t wait any longer. Victor notes the pace at which they eat—slow at first, but gradually increasing, not seeming to realize they’ve become a bit hasty until they meet Victor’s eyes again, face turning a bit red.

“I didn’t think you would watch me the whole time…”

“They must taste pretty good for you to be eating them so eagerly,” Victor notes with a small smile, slightly amused.

“It’s more like…,” they begin, thinking for a moment and placing a sphere into their mouth in the meantime, “once you eat one, you want another. They don’t have a particular taste or texture, though. And, well...I eat when I’m nervous.”

Victor’s curiosity increases with their statement, but he still decides against trying one. At this point, it’s simply his intuition telling him to stay away from ingesting something he can’t identify. In contrast to the room he’s in and the people in it, he’s become more curious of one particular person who doesn’t seem to fit in. Victor doesn’t remember ever being able to hold a conversation in a dream before. In fact, he can’t remember any other dreams he’s had in general, now that he thinks about it. As the noise around him echoes in his head, though, he finds it harder to listen to the stranger in particular. More people are visiting the table as well, and Victor finds himself getting farther from the maskless individual.

“Ah...wait,” Victor tries calling out, and sees a head of brown hair turn around. Before he can continue, though, everything quiets down.

For the first time since entering the room, Victor feels that no one is watching him. Instead, it seems that everyone has turned toward one side of the room, where another elevated platform sits. A single person stands at a podium, dressed in white like the rest of the crowd, but even their skin seems unnaturally pale, as if it was painted white as opposed to a natural skin pigment.

_“Welcome.”_

Victor recognizes it in an instant—the same “welcome” he heard when he first entered the large hall. However, as pleasant as the phrase sounded the first time, Victor is a bit skeptical of it now.

_“I hope you’ve enjoyed your time here,”_ the person at the podium continues, although their mouth doesn’t seem to move at all, just like the masked crowd. The pitch and tone of their voice are indiscernible—Victor thought it was baritone, but he simultaneously perceives higher and lower pitches all in the same voice, making for a strange and slightly unsettling sound to listen to. _“I see some have spotted our appetizers. Feel free to help yourselves. In due time, the main course will be brought out, as well as some seating for all of you. I hope you’re all looking forward to this eventful evening.”_

Some applause makes their way through the room, and Victor glances around him. The dark-clothed individual is gone from sight, and when Victor turns to look back at the podium, he notices that the stage is much closer than before. Close enough to meet the eyes of the person at the podium.

The pitch-black irises that stare back at him are anything but welcoming.

All the hairs on Victor’s skin immediately stand up, and he finds his heart pounding again, a coldness in his fingertips that seems to slowly climb up his arms. But he can’t tear his eyes away—for what feels like hours, he’s forced to stare into eyes devoid of light, of emotion, of life.

And in the blink of an eye, their gaze is broken, the darkness shifting to look out to the crowd, and Victor notices that his palms had begun to sweat.

He’s no longer doubtful of the nature of his dream as it now stands. He needs to find an escape from the room as soon as possible. But as he begins to walk through the crowd again, it only feels more crowded, with most people moving toward the table containing the strange food he chose not to consume. Considering how agitated he’s become, it was a good decision. The last thing he needs is something unknown in his system.

_Ah...what about that other person…?_

It’s strange, Victor realizes. He has no clue who the individual dressed in black was. Yet he feels a connection to them that he can’t explain. Perhaps it was the fact that they could normally communicate. The fact that they talked to each other and heard each other. The fact that, out of the hundreds surrounding Victor, that one person was the most human to him.

And he begins to wonder what the entities around him are, if not human.

Goosebumps rise on Victor’s arms, and he feels a familiar gaze on him—but not a comfortable one. Even though Victor looks like the rest, it may be his maskless face that gave him away. _The most important thing now is to blend in_ , he tells himself, turning to the nearest person with the intention of starting a conversation, however strange it may be.

“Heeeeeeeeey.”

A giggle, a hiccup, and a tug at his sleeve.

Victor’s eyes go wide as he looks over his shoulder. _It’s them._

The only other maskless person in the room is anything but uncomfortable now. In fact, Victor would describe them as the life of the party, if it didn’t entail a party with a hostile host. “A-Are you alright?”

“I’m...great!” they cheekily grin, stumbling closer to Victor. “This stuff’s amazing, y’should try it.” Holding onto Victor’s arm, they hold up a small cube to Victor’s lips, to which Victor immediately puts a hand up to stop them.

“I’m fine, thank you,” he smiles a bit, more worried about them than himself. There’s little doubt that whatever they ate is what put them in a drunken state. “How many of these have you eaten?”

“Ummm…like, a thousand,” they giggle again, and Victor would find it endearing if he wasn’t getting more worried by the second. “They taste like...katsudon. I looooove katsudon. My mom’s katsudon’s the best. You need to try some.”

“Katsudon…?” Victor raises a brow, not sure of what he’s talking about.

Sparing a few seconds to look at the people around him, Victor feels unease bubbling up in his stomach. The person clinging to him isn’t the only one exhibiting strange behavior. The movements of the crowd are freer now, and their voices begin to have a larger variety of volumes and pitches. There also seem to be fewer people as well—it’s not difficult for Victor to see through most of the crowd.

“Heeey, talk to meee,” the person suddenly pulls on Victor’s tie, swiftly untying it from his neck and playing around with it. “Wooow, this looks pretty expenss...epens...expensive! How much d’you pay for this??? I bet it’s a _billion_ dollars.”

There’s so much happening at once that Victor has trouble paying attention to one thing at a time. “Believe it or not, I got it for free,” he makes up a story on the spot—when he thinks about it, it’s not a lie—and feels eyes on him again. By now, he knows for sure that the crowd is getting smaller. What he’s worried about the most, though, is—

Those eyes.

Once he meets them, he can’t look away, and he freezes in place. A flurry of movement reveals them to him: over the shoulder of the dark-clothed individual, a figure standing close to the wall. However far away, though, their gaze is piercing. The rest of the noise around him fades away. Victor isn’t sure he can actually call them eyes. Looking into them, all he sees is a void, a pitch black endlessness that seems to be drawing him closer. There’s no emotion in them, and the same follows for the person’s expression, completely slack. Victor’s figured out what the least human thing in the room is.

“...Where are you looking??? C’mon, look at meeeee.”

In the blink of an eye, the noise comes rushing back to Victor’s ears, and the dark gaze on him is no longer holding him in place. The first indication of emotion shows on the pale individual’s face—an annoyed furrow of their brows before they disappear into the crowd. _They’re coming closer_ , Victor thinks, an instinctual conclusion that he immediately believes.

“C’monnnnn,” the stranger pouts at him, and Victor looks down at them. “Pay attention to me. Or am I not good enough for you, huh? Just ‘cause I’m not ‘s good-looking as _you_...”

“What?” Victor can’t resist laughing slightly, both as a panicked reaction and genuine amusement at their statement. _We have to leave._

“You…!” they bring a finger to Victor’s nose, frowning and poking it. “You’re too attractive. That’s not allowed.”

“Not allowed?”

“Yeah. You’ll give someone a heart attack.”

_They’ll get here soon._ “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, I promise.”

“‘Kay, maybe _I_ didn’t have a heart attack, but—ngh,” they suddenly stop, making Victor stop looking through the crowd to glance at them again. “Ouch…”

“Are you alright?”

“Uh...yeah. Maybe,” they murmur. Compared to just a few seconds ago, though, Victor can tell something has changed. “My stomach hurts. A lot.”

“Are you going to vomit…?” Victor braces himself.

“...I wanna go home…”

It’s an out-of-place statement. Victor could have just dismissed it as drunken rambling, but the slightly nervous edge to their tone tells him that it’s more than that. There’s a hint of desperation in the final word that makes Victor wonder where, exactly, their home is. However “drunk” they are, they’re still just as nervous as when Victor first encountered them.

_“Is something wrong?”_

Time stops, and for a moment Victor’s blood runs cold.

_They’re here._

His mind races a thousand miles per second. There isn’t much he can do—before he can even realize it, the pale figure is standing right in front of him, making him wonder when they arrived there in the first place. Quickly glancing to his left and right, Victor internally curses when he sees that the crowd is only about half as big as it was a few minutes ago. The remaining people, though, while energetic, look more exasperated than enthusiastic.

“Huuuurts,” the maskless person puts both hands on Victor’s arms, stumbling into his chest.

“Um...we’re fine,” Victor murmurs with a small smile, deciding that the only thing he can do now is play it off as normally as he can.

_“Really?”_ the figure’s voice resonates a bit louder than usual. _“Your friend seems to be in a bit of trouble.”_

“Oh, they just got a bit excited,” Victor huffs in feigned amusement. “I’m sure they’ll calm down soon.”

_“I can take care of him for you,_ ” the figure extends a pale hand with anything but a sincere smile, and Victor’s heart skips a beat. _No._

Suddenly, arms wrap around Victor’s neck as the stranger throws himself onto Victor, whining into his neck and making Victor’s hair stand on edge for another reason. “Noooo, I wanna stay with him…”

_“It’d be best for you to rest a while,”_ the host steps forward, laying a hand on their shoulder.

“Nngh, no. I can rest right here...”

Their grip around Victor’s shoulders only increases, and regardless of the reassurance the host tries to provide, the brown-haired person only clings closer to Victor, even trying to wrap a leg around Victor’s hip with a small distressed groan. Victor finds himself pushed back a bit because of their actions, and as nervous as Victor is internally, seeing the slight annoyance on the figure’s face amuses him slightly. He gets the feeling that, if not for the person hanging all over him at the moment, he would be in a much more dangerous situation.

_“Well,”_ the host begins, Victor managing to catch a slightly exasperated tone in a flurry of pitches, _“at the very least, I’ll bring you some medicine.”_ In a split second, the figure disappears, and the crushing weight in Victor’s chest is temporarily lifted.

Victor has noted the feeling of being watched most of the time since entering the room, but as he glances at their surroundings, he feels for the first time that the pale figure has actually left the room—the invisible eyes surveilling his every move have completely ceased to exist, if only for a moment.

He doesn’t want to stay long enough to find out what kind of medicine the host will provide when they come back, though.

“How are you feeling?” Victor murmurs, venturing to put a hand on the person’s head. All he gets is a small groan in response, making him concerned. Acting drunk is one thing, but at this point it seems that they might actually be in pain. And as Victor glances around the room, he realizes that the person clinging to him may not be the only one.

The movements of the remaining crowd, much smaller than Victor remembers, are increasingly erratic, and the noise they make gradually grows in volume, so much that a faint throb begins to grow in Victor’s head. The faint sounds of joy and relaxed banter he heard when he was standing behind the double doors are gone, and Victor knows that staying in the room any longer isn’t an option.

“Can you move?” he nearly whispers, feeling a bit exasperated himself. It’s only been a minute or two since the host left, but they could reappear at any moment.

“I...don’t feel so good…,” is the faint response, along with a tighter grip.

Victor knows it might hold him back, but regardless of the fact that he’s with a complete stranger, he can’t afford to leave them there to deal with whatever the host may try to do to them. The physical weakness that he felt upon waking has subsided as well, and Victor knows he’s capable of what he wants to do. _The only thing missing is an exit._

“I’ll find us a way out,” Victor murmurs, fighting the nervousness bubbling up in his stomach. He has to face another opponent before the host comes back: time.

A push comes from behind, and Victor stumbles forward with the stranger. As much as he wants to avoid the crowd, their desperate nature is something that rubs off regardless of distance.

_Where can we go? Where can I take him?_

The music he had faintly heard before entering the hall resumes, but the vibration of the strings are more akin to screeches than actual music. It only makes Victor more anxious, and the person clothed in black seems bothered by it as well--while keeping one arm around Victor’s neck, they bring one hand down to cover one of their ears, their face no longer buried in his neck.

_We don’t have time. There has to be a way._

Victor pushes past another group of uneasy masked entities.

_Where am I supposed to go?_

A crescendo of sound, and another flurry of movement clouding Victor’s mind.

_What am I supposed to do now?_

_What kind of dream is this?_

“Oh...the stars look nice...I wonder where the moon is…,” the maskless individual murmurs, their chin on Victor’s shoulder.

It shouldn’t make sense. It _doesn’t_ make sense. They’re indoors, in a room without windows or doors, and a stranger clinging to Victor claims to see stars. But those words are all he can rely on. Turning around, he sees it: a flight of stairs leading up to the ceiling, with no visible door or opening. _Stars…? There’s nothing there…_ As skeptical as Victor is, when he turns his head to stare at their face, he sees a strange, calm conviction in their warm brown eyes. They manage to calm Victor down a bit, and he knows what he should do now.

The staircase is their only chance.

“Hang onto me,” Victor warns, bending down slightly to pick up their legs and wrap them around his waist. Although their grip is a bit weaker than before, it’s still firm enough that Victor isn’t too concerned about them falling.

The voices around him sound exasperated, tired, and desperate as he pushes his way past a few people. The crowd’s number no longer poses a problem—it’s their movements, hardly predictable, that get in Victor’s way as he tries to reach the staircase. He isn’t sure what he’ll find at the top, but all doors in the room disappeared long ago, and not a single window is in sight regardless of the fact that a staircase could suddenly materialize within the space. It’s something Victor should have noticed earlier, but it’s too late to reprimand himself over it. He can worry about that once they’ve escaped.

“Ow…”

The grip on Victor’s neck tightens, and he senses a shiver from the brunette. He isn’t sure what’s going on, but as he finally reaches the staircase he makes sure to have a secure grip before taking the first step.

Deafening silence fills the room.

Victor struggles to gulp. The pressure he suddenly feels is immense—the next step he takes nearly requires all of his energy, and when he makes it he gasps for breath. _They’re here._ Not daring to look back, he musters all of his energy and stares at each step, focusing his attention on getting up the staircase one stair at a time. He can’t turn around. The moment his focus snaps, the moment he gives in to the sinister presence in the room, he knows that’ll be the end for both of them.

“Feel...sick…” The murmur is whispered into his shoulder, and their hands grip the back of Victor’s jacket. Victor wants to tell them something reassuring, but he isn’t sure he has the energy for that, either.

_How long as it been?_ he wonders. It could be a few seconds or a couple of minutes, but with each painstaking step taken, Victor feels as if he’s aged another year, legs beginning to shake. The pressure is only growing, getting closer, getting ready to take over. Victor’s instincts, however, continue to fight back. He’s never felt so scared before—he doesn’t remember any other frightening experiences he’s had, however—and even if only a dream, Victor doesn’t want to know what happens when he gives in.

_I have to keep going. I have to get out._

_“Where do you think you’re going?”_ rings a voice in Victor’s head, a relentless hurricane of sounds and emotions he can’t properly process.

His vision blurs for a second, and he comes close to stumbling. Nausea washes over him in a wave, threatening to drain his energy.

_Keep going. Get out._

Taking the chance to glance upwards, he sees that there are only a handful of steps left. A rush of adrenaline courses through him, and the pressure on his body subsides only the slightest bit. It feels like heaven to Victor, though, regardless of the remaining pressure weighing down on him. One step, two, three, and Victor feels like he’ll faint, but he bumps his head against something and feels a rush of relief and dread at the same time.

He’s reached the ceiling.

“Come on,” he nearly hisses through his teeth, pounding his palm on the smooth surface. It takes everything in him to believe in the dark-clothed individual’s words, feeling that deafening pressure nudging closer and closer, louder and louder, a ringing beginning to echo in Victor’s ears. He doesn’t have any other choice, even though he knew there wasn’t an opening at the top of the stairs.

“Did you see…?” comes a whisper, right by Victor’s ear. “A shooting star…did you make a wish…?”

_Please…_ Victor screws his eyes shut, one arm around the person’s waist while he presses up on the ceiling with the other, even shifting to push his back against it. A bead of sweat rolls across his temple. There are only seconds left, and then it’ll be too late.

“I want…”

Victor feels movement by his ear, rustling his hair, and the hair on every inch of his body stands on end. By now, his legs are violently shaking, and his arms aren’t much better. _It’s over…_

But as he finally opens his eyes, he sees an arm by his head, soft black cotton with a streak of blue brushing his cheek. Meeting dark brown irises, he sees them.

His body feels weightless for a few fleeting seconds. Speechless, Victor finds himself unable to do anything else but stare into the shining irises, reflecting a glittering pool of light. Thousands of millions of glimmers of light stare back at him. _This is...the stars._

Everything around them crumbles in the blink of an eye.

Victor finds himself plunged into darkness for a few terrifying moments before the weight of gravity pulls down on him just as quickly, making his head spin. The unknown person is still in his arms, and he holds on tighter, not knowing what will happen next. His eyes close, recognizing the sensation of awakening, grateful that the dream is over.

His body and his mind slowly grow apart, feeling numbness come over him, but eventually, they come back and find each other again. He lays on his side and his body slumps against his bed, exhaling in relief.

_Finally._

Then, a whisper, and warm breath in front of his face.

“Where…?”

At once, Victor’s eyes widen. He expects to be in bed _—_ he expects it so naturally that he almost ignored the strange texture of the bed beneath his body until now—in a room he’s familiar with. Instead, lying on the ground with him is the same person from his dream, eyes barely open and face flushed. Victor feels a strange tingle in his arms and legs, and when he attempts to sit up he finds his limbs incredibly sore, falling back down. Grass and other tall plants poke at his body, and his previously pearl-white clothes are stained from lying down. It takes nearly all his energy to sit up again, and when he does, he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

Tall grass rises over their heads, rustling in the soft, warm breeze that carries through the clearing. Off to the distance, trees of all shapes and sizes surround them. Devoid of any other color, moonlight paints the landscape in black and white. Off to Victor’s right, he sees a faint hint of mountaintops, their peaks basked in white snow. Lightning bugs’ yellow-green glow flicker on and off around them, but their light is nothing compared to the river of light up above—an ocean of stars trailing across the sky, taking Victor’s breath away and holding it captive. A wave of emotions wash over him: relief, awe, exhaustion, calmness, and something he can’t describe, something locked away in those stars that he can’t find the right words for.

_Is this still...just a dream?_


End file.
